A municipal commissioner writes: 'The request to let one cobbler set his kiosk on the park's footpath must be refused. Let one kiosk stand there and a second will follow; let two stand and the traders of the lane behind will move across; and in five years there will be no park left, only a bazaar.' The commissioner's reasoning is most open to criticism because it

Every link in the commissioner's chain is asserted and none is supported: he does not say why granting one man a licence must lead the municipality to grant a second, nor why two kiosks would draw a whole lane of traders across, and the alarm at the end of the chain is doing the work that the missing reasons should have done. A refusal may still be right, but not on this argument. Where the cobbler would place his kiosk is a detail of the same request; the park's size does not affect whether the steps follow; and the traders being of several minds would weaken one link without touching the others, which is a smaller point than the one the chain as a whole invites.